1.12: General Conditions and Project Staffing

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

• Define the elements contained within general conditions for a project.
• Understand the typical organizational structure and job tasks of different participants on a project.
• Be able to define and draw a typical organizational structure for a construction firm, and understand how it differs from typical manufacturing or service organizations.

Introduction

When developing a detailed estimate of costs, the team needs to plan for the project-related general conditions costs as well as the home office overhead costs. These costs do not directly contribute to the final facility, but they are necessary to manage the delivery of a project and ensure that the site is safe and secure. General Conditions will vary on a project based upon the size of the project, project complexity, site constraints, duration of the project, cost of management staff, as well as many other factors. These costs can be separated into the Direct Overhead (specific to a project) and Indirect Overhead (related to home office expenses). Gordian has developed a checklist for the costs in each of these two categories (see Figure 1 with project overhead on the left and home office overhead on the right).

Figure 1: Gordian Construction Estimating Checklist for Project and Main Office Overhead

The remainder of this chapter will focus on Direct Overhead costs, which are specific to the project. These project-related costs are typically referred to as the ‘general conditions’ costs. General Conditions include the costs related to complying with the General Requirements for a project which are frequently outlined within a ‘General Requirements’ section of a contract. The minimum General Requirements are typically included in the Specification Section 01 within the Technical Specifications and may also be defined within a separate contract document. To identify a cost for many of these items, an estimator can reference the CSI MasterFormat Section 01 within the Building Construction Cost Estimate Guide with RS Means Data. Examples of items within the division include project management time, field supervision time, construction trailers, and jobsite fencing.

Construction Company Structure

There are many people engaged in the design and construction of a capital facility project. When we look at the tasks that are typically performed by a construction organization, we see a number of core functions, with examples including estimating, scheduling, safety management, accounting, business development, and operations. These functions can be organized in different ways within a construction company. For smaller companies, a single person may perform multiple functions, e.g., estimating and accounting. In larger companies, a function may be performed by a department within the organization, or possibly even multiple geographically located departments, e.g. an estimating department in Washington DC and an estimating department in New York.

Figure : Typical Organizational Chart for Large Construction Company (Source: Levelset)

Figure : Typical Organizational Chart for a Small Construction Company (Source: Levelset)

Preconstruction Services

Operations

Some companies refer to the staff members that are responsible for the planning and delivery of a facility as the ‘Operations’ function (or department) within the company. The Operations group will typically have project executives, who manage the overall delivery of a project, along with project management staff who manage the delivery of the project on a day-to-day basis, and the superintendent staff who develop and implement the detailed construction plans, spending time in the field to direct the work activities.

Project Management Staff

The Project Management staff is responsible for managing the overall contract for the project. These staff members are sometimes referred to as the ‘office staff’ from the perspective of the management of the project. They tend to spend the majority of their time in an office environment, frequently in a jobsite trailer or office, working on management and administrative tasks necessary to ensure that the field labor and supervision are provided everything that they need to efficiently perform the fieldwork. This includes tasks such as:

Field Supervision Staff

The Field Supervision staff is responsible for managing the field operations along with ensuring that the field operations have everything that they need to be successful. While everyone on a project is responsible for safety, the field supervision staff has an added role of ensuring that there is a lead safety representative whenever there are field employees performing construction activities on the site.

Review Questions